Description: These girders were the mortal remains of the bridge that carried the Great Northern Railway's Derbyshire Extension line (closed in 1968) from Nottingham to Ilkeston, Derby and Burton upon Trent across the Nottingham Canal. The bridge stood in the background of this view and was demolished to allow the area to be opencasted for coal - the truncated embankment leading onto the listed Bennerley Viaduct, by means of which the railway crossed the Erewash Valley, can be seen to the right.
on a bridge here; the embankment briefly resumes in the left background before passing onto the iron trestle Bennerley Viaduct. To the right of this is the now demolished Bennerley Disposal Point where coal mined by opencast methods was processed and loaded for rail transport. The disused canal is itself shown here after reinstatement following opencasting.
The Nottingham Canal extended from the River Trent at Nottingham in a generally north-westerly direction for 14.7 miles (23.6 kilometres) via Lenton, Radford, Wollaton, Trowell, Cossall, and Awsworth to Langley Mill where it connected with the Cromford and Erewash Canals. Its main purpose was the movement of coal from mines in the Erewash Valley to Nottingham. Opened in 1796, it was later acquired by the Great Northern Railway but, apart from the Nottingham-Lenton section (which was transferred to the Trent Navigation Company and, via its link with the Beeston Canal, remains in use today), it was abandoned in 1936.